Lady Nij (Nij dono) is the protagonist of the autobiographical narrative Towazugatari (An Unasked-for Tale, 1307-1313), which describes her life from the ages of fourteen to forty-nine. Through skillfully combining elements of genres such as the classical court diary (nikki), tale (monogatari), and travel diary (kik), Towazugatari paints an intimate picture of life at the court of Retired Emperor Go-Fukakusa, where Lady Nij served as imperial concubine, and presents colorful vignettes of Kamakura and other areas traversed by Nij after she became a Buddhist nun. Towazugatari served as an important source for the fourteenth-century historical narrative Masukagami (The Larger Mirror, 1368-1375) and then largely disappeared from sight until a single manuscript was unearthed in 1938. Since the first annotated editions appeared in the 1960s, Towazugatari has been enthusiastically received by scholars and has inspired artists, including the Japanese novelist Setouchi Harumi and the English playwright Caryl Churchill, to re-create...